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Joe Oombash was born blind 69 years ago on the Cat Lake First Nation, a fly-in reserve in Northern Ontario, only to tumble into state care at age 13 — and never leave.
Today, 56 years later, the sightless man sees one thing with absolute clarity: he’s going home.
After years of negotiation, Oombash is taking a series of flights Monday to live in a group home in Sioux Lookout, 180 kilometres from Cat Lake, an area within reach of his extended family.
Or the remnants of it. Though torn away, Joe made out better than some of his seven siblings. Two brothers, Charlie and Tom, were forcibly put into residential school in 1956, from where they ran away and died. His parents are long gone. His brother Stanley, an elder at Cat Lake, died in December.
Photos: Joe celebrates heading home
Joe Oombash, 56, who has lived for most of his life in state care, celebrated at a party his imminent return home to Cat Lake/Sioux Lookout area, Jan. 15, 2016.
Joe, meanwhile, would spend 29 years at the giant Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls, before moving into a group home in Ottawa in 1988. While institutionalized, the mentally disabled man discovered a gift for music. He’s learned dozens of songs by ear, on piano, guitar, accordion and mouth organ.
“Feeling a little sad, because I’m leaving,” he said one afternoon last week, as friends gathered at a goodbye party at the Nepean Sportsplex. “I’m going home. It’s what I choose.”
Indeed, it was evident at the gathering how well-loved he is — how fellow residents and caregivers became his substitute family.
“I’m almost in tears,” said Louisa Schandorf, a counsellor at Ottawa Foyers Partage, which runs five group homes in the city. “I just don’t want to cry in front of all these people.” Joe, she said, always considered her like a sister during their 10-year acquaintance.
“I’m going to miss him so much,” said residential counsellor Cara Deszcz, who has known Joe for three years. “Joe likes change and new things. There wasn’t a day when he didn’t want to be out of the house.”
She said he even took to busking on Sparks Street Mall. Often, on warm nights, he would sit on the porch at home and play guitar, usually country music.
Joe was so involved with music, in fact, he received the Mayor’s City Builder Award in November, for his regular volunteer work at seniors homes across the city and his longtime participation in the CNIB choir.
A photo album at the party documented Joe’s many adventures: canoeing, barbecuing, Swiss Chalet birthday meals, hot air ballooning, Halloween costumes, a trip to the pumpkin patch, a Mexican night in a sombrero.
One of his most loyal supporters during the last decade has been Jean Boulay, a federal public servant who is Joe’s “advocate” through the Citizen Advocacy program. They saw each other about once a week, usually for breakfast, but also went on extended outings.
Boulay travelled to the Cat Lake area twice with Joe and admits his departure is causing mixed emotions, but mostly happiness.
“One of the first things Joe said to me when I met him 10 years ago was ‘I want to be discharged’,” as though he were a captive patient, remembers Boulay. He would often express a desire to go “home,” though it was difficult to know whether Joe fully appreciated what that entailed.
Still, his caregivers have done their best to prepare him. He is learning Ojibway by listening to a CD. One of the Sioux Lookout staff have visited here and promise he will have a music corner in his new home, to be shared with two others.
A frequent visitor to the Wabano Centre on Montreal Road, he will also have available to him a native friendship centre in the small northern Ontario town of 5,500, where it was minus 31 Sunday morning.
Understandably, there has been concern about whether the remote town has the services to support a blind, vulnerable senior accustomed to variety. And Cat Lake is even tinier, with about 700 residents, its remoteness contributing to a prescription drug crisis that made national news in 2012.
Monday, he travels 1,800 km west in a time machine. Torn from his family, his cultural roots, he yet made a life for himself here, was treasured. And, as was evident at his party, found moments of joy. But here is no ordinary Joe — he sings his own song, sees his own way.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
Today, 56 years later, the sightless man sees one thing with absolute clarity: he’s going home.
After years of negotiation, Oombash is taking a series of flights Monday to live in a group home in Sioux Lookout, 180 kilometres from Cat Lake, an area within reach of his extended family.
Or the remnants of it. Though torn away, Joe made out better than some of his seven siblings. Two brothers, Charlie and Tom, were forcibly put into residential school in 1956, from where they ran away and died. His parents are long gone. His brother Stanley, an elder at Cat Lake, died in December.
Photos: Joe celebrates heading home
Joe Oombash, 56, who has lived for most of his life in state care, celebrated at a party his imminent return home to Cat Lake/Sioux Lookout area, Jan. 15, 2016.
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Joe Oombash is festooned in balloons at a party to celebrate his returning to the Cat Lake/Sioux Lookout area after spending much of his life in state care. Oombash, 69, and others have fought to provide the care needed to allow him to return him to his native area. Darren Brown / Ottawa Citizen
Cathy Lonergan, a residential counsellor at Rossland residence of Ottawa Foyers Partage, chats with Joe Oombash during a going-away party in his honour on Jan. 15, 2016. Darren Brown / Ottawa Citizen
Joe Oombash , who is mentally disadvantaged and blind, was put into state care at the age of 13. Darren Brown / Ottawa Citizen
Joe Oombash is photographed during a going-away party with balloons and cake at the Nepean Sportsplex before he moves back to Cat Lake/Sioux Lookout area, where he was born, 69 years ago, Friday January 15, 2016. Darren Brown / Ottawa Citizen
Joe Oombash was put into care at the age of 13. Many of his siblings were put in residential care. Darren Brown / Ottawa Citizen
AUGUST 13: Joe Oombash, 69, is a blind Ojibway man who has been trying to move back near his extended family in northwestern Ontario for years. Ashley Fraser / Ottawa Citizen
Joe Oombash, 69, is a blind, Ojibwa man who has been trying to move back near his extended family in northwestern Ontario for years now. Oombash was photographed where he currently resides in Ottawa, Thursday August 13, 2015.
Mayor Jim Watson and Knoxdale-Merivale ward Coun. Keith Egli present a Mayor's City Builder Award to Joseph "Joe" Oombash. Roger Lalonde / City of Ottawa
- The UpBeat: Joseph Oombash receives Mayor’s City Builder Award
- Egan: Blind, disabled, in state care for 56 years, Joe Oombash longs for home
Joe, meanwhile, would spend 29 years at the giant Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls, before moving into a group home in Ottawa in 1988. While institutionalized, the mentally disabled man discovered a gift for music. He’s learned dozens of songs by ear, on piano, guitar, accordion and mouth organ.
“Feeling a little sad, because I’m leaving,” he said one afternoon last week, as friends gathered at a goodbye party at the Nepean Sportsplex. “I’m going home. It’s what I choose.”
Indeed, it was evident at the gathering how well-loved he is — how fellow residents and caregivers became his substitute family.
“I’m almost in tears,” said Louisa Schandorf, a counsellor at Ottawa Foyers Partage, which runs five group homes in the city. “I just don’t want to cry in front of all these people.” Joe, she said, always considered her like a sister during their 10-year acquaintance.
“I’m going to miss him so much,” said residential counsellor Cara Deszcz, who has known Joe for three years. “Joe likes change and new things. There wasn’t a day when he didn’t want to be out of the house.”
She said he even took to busking on Sparks Street Mall. Often, on warm nights, he would sit on the porch at home and play guitar, usually country music.
Joe was so involved with music, in fact, he received the Mayor’s City Builder Award in November, for his regular volunteer work at seniors homes across the city and his longtime participation in the CNIB choir.
A photo album at the party documented Joe’s many adventures: canoeing, barbecuing, Swiss Chalet birthday meals, hot air ballooning, Halloween costumes, a trip to the pumpkin patch, a Mexican night in a sombrero.
One of his most loyal supporters during the last decade has been Jean Boulay, a federal public servant who is Joe’s “advocate” through the Citizen Advocacy program. They saw each other about once a week, usually for breakfast, but also went on extended outings.
Boulay travelled to the Cat Lake area twice with Joe and admits his departure is causing mixed emotions, but mostly happiness.
“One of the first things Joe said to me when I met him 10 years ago was ‘I want to be discharged’,” as though he were a captive patient, remembers Boulay. He would often express a desire to go “home,” though it was difficult to know whether Joe fully appreciated what that entailed.
Still, his caregivers have done their best to prepare him. He is learning Ojibway by listening to a CD. One of the Sioux Lookout staff have visited here and promise he will have a music corner in his new home, to be shared with two others.
A frequent visitor to the Wabano Centre on Montreal Road, he will also have available to him a native friendship centre in the small northern Ontario town of 5,500, where it was minus 31 Sunday morning.
Understandably, there has been concern about whether the remote town has the services to support a blind, vulnerable senior accustomed to variety. And Cat Lake is even tinier, with about 700 residents, its remoteness contributing to a prescription drug crisis that made national news in 2012.
Monday, he travels 1,800 km west in a time machine. Torn from his family, his cultural roots, he yet made a life for himself here, was treasured. And, as was evident at his party, found moments of joy. But here is no ordinary Joe — he sings his own song, sees his own way.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
